Latest news with #SuperintelligenceLab
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Business Standard
a day ago
- Business
- Business Standard
H-1B visa must end? Even US' AI needs 'brown hands', says tech entrepreneur
End H-1B visa? That's what US congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called for recently, reigniting a longstanding debate around one of the country's most crucial work visa categories. Her comment came while responding to Donald Trump's decision to raise tariffs on Indian oil imports to then 25 per cent (now its 50 per cent). The Republican firebrand took to X, writing, 'End Indian H1-B visas replacing American jobs instead and stop funding and sending weapons to the Obama/Biden/Neocon Ukraine Russia war.' The post triggered swift backlash, particularly from the tech community. 'Even your blonde AI agents will need brown hands to make sense of the world!' said Rajat Sethi, a tech entrepreneur and policy expert, in a pointed reply. What is the H-1B visa and who uses it? The H-1B visa allows US companies to hire foreign workers in specialised fields like IT, engineering, finance and healthcare. Over the years, Indian nationals have consistently made up the largest group of H-1B recipients—accounting for 72 per cent of all approvals, followed by Chinese nationals at 12 per cent. In 2023, 65 per cent of all H-1B holders were employed in computer-related occupations. According to a BBC report, their median annual salary stood at $118,000—roughly double the US average. Greene's comments struck a nerve in the tech sector, where immigrant workers play a central role in fuelling innovation. The Indian diaspora and global tech professionals viewed her remarks as detached from the real-world composition of the US tech industry. 'Have you or anyone in your extended family written a single line of code?' Sethi asked, questioning Greene's understanding of the very workforce that powers Silicon Valley. Just last month, Meta's new artificial intelligence research arm—Superintelligence Lab—was revealed to be led entirely by immigrant researchers. The team of 11, recruited from elite firms like OpenAI, DeepMind and Google, includes experts from India, China, South Africa, the UK and Australia. Each has advanced degrees from US institutions and experience building high-level AI systems. 'Meta's Superintelligence Lab, led entirely by immigrant researchers, is the practical reality we needed to see. AI innovation is truly going borderless and India continues to serve as a strong hub of ready talent,' Praneet Singh, AVP – University Partnership at upGrad's study abroad division told Business Standard. Singh added, 'It's quite paradoxical, though — while our talent is ready, mobility remains constrained. Despite policy shifts like STEM OPT extensions and improved green card processing, visa constraints and bureaucratic uncertainties continue to slow down global movement.' Where do Trump and his allies stand on H-1B? Within Trump's orbit, there's no clear consensus. Elon Musk, once close to Trump but now distanced, supports H-1B but wants reforms. Steve Bannon, former White House adviser, has called for eliminating the visa entirely, along with student visas. In contrast, the Trump administration in its first term floated proposals to scrap the H-1B lottery and replace it with a salary-based selection system. Supporters say this would ensure only highly paid roles go to foreign workers. Critics warn it could sideline fresh graduates and early-career professionals, many of whom are already educated in the US. What happens next? There's no immediate policy change stemming from Greene's remarks. But they echo broader Republican efforts to curb immigration—especially work-related routes. According to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data, nearly 70 per cent of all H-1B approvals in fiscal year 2024 were granted to Indian nationals. Any policy shift could reshape the pipeline of talent feeding into America's tech and research sectors, many of which still rely heavily on H-1B workers.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mark Zuckerberg's Meta pays ‘tens of millions of dollars' to poach top Apple AI exec — adding to murderers' row of new hires
Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has reportedly forked over 'tens of millions of dollars' to poach one of Apple's top artificial intelligence researchers as the tech giant continued to add to a murderers' row of high-paid talent. Ruoming Pang, who led the team responsible for developing Apple's AI models, will become the latest member to join Meta's new 'Superintelligence Lab,' Bloomberg reported, citing sources with knowledge of the matter. Meta reportedly lured Pang, who had worked at Apple since 2021, with a compensation package 'worth tens of millions of dollars per year,' the sources said. The company also recently hired away researchers Yuanzhi Li from OpenAI and Anton Bakhtin from Anthropic. In all, Meta has poached more than a dozen top AI researchers since last week, purportedly offering compensation packages worth $100 million or more to win the AI arms race – meaning the company's total spending on hires could soon surpass $1 billion, if it hasn't already. At least nine of the hires jumped ship from Sam Altman's OpenAI, with the others coming from Google DeepMind and Amazon-backed Anthropic. The new hires will be part of the the newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs, headed by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. Late last month, Zuckerberg announced that Wang came aboard after Meta invested nearly $15 billion for a 49% stake in the startup. Other key hires include former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, ex-Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross and former OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal, who played a key role in developing the ChatGPT maker's AI reasoning models. 'As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight,' Zuckerberg said in an internal message to employees on June 30. The announcement helped push Meta's stock to an all-time high. Meta confirmed the hire but declined further comment. Apple did not immediately respond. Meta's tactics have miffed Altman, who has publicly grumbled about his billionaire rival targeting OpenAI's employees with exorbitant packages. Top Meta executive Andrew Bosworth reportedly pushed back during a recent all-hands meeting, telling employees that Altman was being 'dishonest' about the extent of the offers. At the same time, Meta denied a report from the tech news site Wired that it had offered up to $300 million to some AI talent – numbers that, if true, would dwarf the annual pay of some of the world's top tech executives. 'Some people have chosen to greatly exaggerate what's happening for their own purposes,' Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said at the time. Meanwhile, the loss of Pang was another setback for Apple, which has struggled to integrate new AI features for its iPhones and other hardware. Pang oversaw roughly 100 employees at Apple. During Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference last month, the company confirmed that its long-teased AI overhaul of the Siri voice assistant still needed more work before it could be released to the public.
India.com
29-07-2025
- Business
- India.com
Who is Shengjia Zhao? Brain behind designing ChatGPT, now became Chief scientist of..., his salary is...
Who is Shengjia Zhao? Brain behind designing ChatGPT, now became Chief scientist of..., his salary is... Former OpenAI researcher Shengjia Zhao has been appointed as the Chief Scientist of Meta's newly launched Superintelligence Lab, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last Friday. This comes after he collected all the top talents from the industry for his prized AI team. The Superintelligence Lab, his dream project, is garnering a lot of attention from around the world for poaching the top AI talent, with astronomical salary figures. He has now confirmed Shengjia Zhao, the co-creator of ChatGPT as the Chief Scientist of his extremely prized MSL. W hat Mark Zuckerberg said? In a post on Threads, Zuckerberg introduced the scientist's addition to the team, 'I'm excited to share that Shengjia Zhao will be the Chief Scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs. In this role, Shengjia will set the research agenda and scientific direction for our new lab working directly with me and Alex,' he wrote. ' Shengjia co-founded the new lab and has been our lead scientist from day one. Now that our recruiting is going well and our team is coming together, we have decided to formalize his leadership role. Shengjia has already pioneered several breakthroughs including a new scaling paradigm and distinguished himself as a leader in the field. I'm looking forward to working closely with him to advance his scientific vision,' he added. Who is this genius? Zhao is a genius with many achievements, he has been awarded multiple times, has a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford, and is a complete overachiever. With an impressive track record in the AI industry, he has co-created not only ChatGPT but also GPT-4 and several of OpenAI's mini models, including GPT-4.1 and GPT-o3. His recruitment is part of a broader trend of researchers transitioning from OpenAI to Meta in recent weeks because Meta is reportedly offering highly astronomical compensation packages and deals to attract top AI researchers. According to industry experts, this strategy is aimed on closing the gap to the leading AI models from rivals like OpenAI and Google after Meta's Llama 4 model was expected to take the battle to OpenAI , but was greeted with underwhelming performance. A ll about Meta's new lab Meta's Superintelligence lab was launched by Meta in order to not only enhance the Llama AI model, but also so it can advance its long-term ambitions in the field. According to the post made by Zuckerberg, Zhao is a co-founder of this new lab, all while being a part of the FAIR AI research division, which was led by Yann LeCun , the deep learning pioneer. MSL operates independently from FAIR. Meta has poured billions into hiring top talent from rivals, which include Google, OpenAI , Apple, and Anthropic. The company also acquired Scale AI for $14 billion, bringing its CEO, Alexandr Wang, on board as Meta's Chief AI Officer. Showing the commitment of Zuckerberg of investing hundreds of billions more in building vast AI data centres across the US.
Entrepreneur
28-07-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Meta Appoints Ex-OpenAI Scientist Shengjia Zhao to Lead New Superintelligence Lab
Zhao, previously a research scientist at OpenAI, played a pivotal role in creating GPT-4 and various lighter models such as version 4.1 and o3. He is among at least eight researchers who have recently transitioned from OpenAI to Meta. You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. Meta Platforms has appointed Shengjia Zhao, a leading figure in the development of OpenAI's ChatGPT, as chief scientist of its newly launched Superintelligence Lab. This high-profile move marks a significant step in Meta's accelerating drive to position itself at the forefront of advanced artificial intelligence. CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared the announcement on Friday through Threads. He said Zhao will guide the lab's scientific direction and collaborate closely with both Zuckerberg and Meta's Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang. Wang joined the company earlier this year after Meta took a substantial stake in his former company, Scale AI. Zhao, previously a research scientist at OpenAI, played a pivotal role in creating GPT-4 and various lighter models such as version 4.1 and o3. He is among at least eight researchers who have recently transitioned from OpenAI to Meta. The influx of talent signals Meta's intent to rapidly close the distance with competitors in the race toward building artificial general intelligence. The creation of the Superintelligence Lab is part of Meta's broader efforts to establish a premier AI research division. The lab is distinct from FAIR, Meta's long-standing AI unit led by deep learning pioneer Yann LeCun. While FAIR has focused on foundational research, the new lab aims to develop what Zuckerberg has described as full general intelligence. Zuckerberg also confirmed that Meta plans to open-source the work produced by the Superintelligence Lab. This strategy has drawn mixed reactions within the AI community, with some praising the transparency and others warning of risks linked to such openness. Meanwhile, Meta's recruitment campaign has unsettled OpenAI. Internal messages leaked this month revealed OpenAI Chief Research Officer Mark Chen comparing Meta's tactics to "someone breaking into our home and stealing something." In response, OpenAI is reportedly reassessing its compensation practices and offering staff additional time off to curb further departures. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly criticised what he views as profit-driven hiring practices. He alleged that Meta has lured researchers with offers reaching USD 100 million in signing bonuses, a claim dismissed as exaggerated by Meta's Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth. However, reports of even higher offers, including an unverified USD 1.25 billion compensation package over four years, illustrate the escalating competition for elite AI talent. While Altman argues that OpenAI's mission-focused approach offers a stronger long-term foundation, others in the industry see Meta's strategy as justified. Google DeepMind's CEO Demis Hassabis called the hiring surge a rational response given Meta's desire to catch up. With over USD 14 billion invested in AI infrastructure and partnerships, Meta is making its intentions clear. The addition of Zhao and other key hires underscores the company's determination to lead—not just follow—the next wave of AI development.
Deccan Herald
27-07-2025
- Business
- Deccan Herald
Meta appoints ChatGPT co-creator as Superintelligence Lab chief
Meta Platforms has appointed Shengjia Zhao, co-creator of ChatGPT, as chief scientist of its Superintelligence Lab, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday, as the company accelerates its push into advanced AI. "In this role, Shengjia will set the research agenda and scientific direction for our new lab working directly with me and Alex," Zuckerberg wrote in a Threads post, referring to Meta's Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who Zuckerberg hired from startup Scale AI when Meta took a big stake in it. Zhao, a former research scientist at OpenAI, co-created ChatGPT, GPT-4 and several of OpenAI's mini models, including 4.1 and o3. He is among several researchers who have moved from OpenAI to Meta in recent weeks, part of a broader talent arms race as Zuckerberg aggressively hires from rivals to close the gap in advanced AI. Meta has been offering some of Silicon Valley's most lucrative pay packages and striking startup deals to attract top researchers, a strategy that follows the underwhelming performance of its Llama 4 model. Meta launched the Superintelligence Lab recently to consolidate work on its Llama models and long-term artificial general intelligence ambitions. Zhao is a co-founder of the lab, according to the Threads post, which operates separately from FAIR, Meta's established AI research division led by deep learning pioneer Yann LeCun. Zuckerberg has said Meta aims to build 'full general intelligence' and release its work as open source — a strategy that has drawn both praise and concern within the AI community.
